Luckygirl3
I joined an online group for those who have been bereaved. I find it impossible to believe that they all had perfect partners who were paragons of virtue. But so it would seem from the posts.
Am I the only widow whose partner was not perfect; who did things that I find hard to forgive? I know that latterly some of his unacceptable behaviour was illness-induced and those things I can forgive - he did not really know what he was doing. These things were hard to bear.
But even before then, although we were solid as a couple, there were behaviours that caused me distress. And when I look back I realise I could have handled some of these things better - hindsight is a great thing - but too late now to set these right. Am I the only person who finds it hard not to dwell on these things?
I lost my husband nearly five years ago and joined an online group called WayUp. I kind of get what you mean, but I think the nature of grief - especially in the early stages of bereavement - is that you tend to focus on all that was good about the person you lost, and you do tend to look through rose tinted specs. I had forty happy years of marriage, but it wasn’t perfect - neither of us were. The problems we did have in our life together were due to selfish behaviour on both parts and there are some things that I look back on now and with hindsight I realise I was mostly at fault - some were also very firmly on him. I dare say if I had passed away first and my husband had been the one left alone, he would have thought the same.
I’m so sorry for your loss. You have a hard time ahead of you and unfortunately there is no easy or quick way around grief - you have to work through it, and it’s the nature of the beast to throw up a rollercoaster of emotions, including the one responsible for your post. As you say, it’s too late now to put things right, but you will tend to dwell on it until you make sense of this stage of your grief. Anger is part of the process, just make sure that you don’t get stuck in the cycle and do ask for help if you need it. I had counselling after I was widowed. It was arranged with NHS trust mental health services via my GP. I had to wait a while, but it was well worth it - it’s not for everyone because it’s hard and you have to be prepared to engage with it and face up to difficult issues. If the website you are on is WayUp, try to engage more with people who are further on in their journey - there’s a wealth of experience out there and if I remember rightly, people were only too willing to share and support one another. If you haven’t discovered WayUp yet, google it and see what you think. Good luck.?